Sitting at her desk in the Office of Admissions, Nancy Vaught was interrupted when a student peeked his head in and said, “You’re the reason I came here!”

He closed the door behind him and ran to catch the awaiting open elevator doors.

That was a couple of years ago, and Vaught said she still doesn’t know who the student was. For all she knows, he might have graduated and moved away by now, but she still remembers the day clearly.

Vaught has been working as the receptionist at the Office of Admissions since July 2003. She is often the first person prospective students meet when visiting Syracuse University. Some people, she said, have even labeled her the “face of the university.”

Others, such as the tour guides that she works closely with, consider her their second mom.

“Some students will come in and, if they don’t feel well, they’ll ask me what I think, they’ll ask me how to wash certain kinds of clothes sometimes, they’ll ask me how long certain foods are good for,” Vaught said.

She does it because she cares, and if her children were at another university away from their home and family, she hopes someone would do the same for them.

The older of her two children is Zach Vaught, a senior psychology major and manager of the men’s basketball team. He said his mom has always been supportive of him, and being accepted to SU was no different.

Attending SU was an obvious decision for Zach Vaught. And even though he knew his mom was going to be working at the same place he was spending his four years of college, he said it didn’t matter. He didn’t plan on visiting his mom more than the average college student who wanted to get away from home life.

Regardless of the close proximity to each other, moving her son out of the house wasn’t easy. After dropping him off in Haven Hall the fall of his freshman year, Zach Vaught said his mom began to cry.

“I was like ‘Mom, relax. I’m 15 minutes away from your house, and I’m a two-minute walk away from your office. You’re going to see me again,’” he said.

Since becoming a university tour guide himself after accepting the idea of his mom being his boss, Zach Vaught does irregularly see her, even if it is only for work-related business.

He sees how easy it is for her work to go underappreciated since she handles little things that no one else really wants to do.

“She makes their lives easier,” Zach Vaught said. “Everything people do goes through her, admissions-wise, which is why I think so many people know her, and she’s good at what she does. That’s why so many people like her.”

Former tour guide Forrest Ball graduated from SU last year and now works as Vaught’s colleague in the Office of Admissions. He had a close relationship with Vaught during his time as a student, and when deciding to come back to the university as an employee, he knew he would work closely with Vaught again.

But he decided to surprise her.

He never told her his plans for after graduation, and after accepting the position, he visited Vaught in her office a few days before the start of this school year.

She was excited to see him, but when she heard he was going to work in the Office of Admissions with her, she was so excited that she did a little dance that had been their inside joke during his time as a student.

Ball was reunited with his “tour guide mom.”

Graduating in 2008, Nick Huertas was also a tour guide during his time on campus. That was when he first met Nancy Vaught, his “mom away from home.”

“She has the biggest heart out of anyone I’ve ever met at Syracuse University,” Huertas said. “It’s amazing to see how many tour guides a year come through the office, and every single one of them has built some kind of relationship with Nancy.”

And she remembers them all, often sharing favorite memories of past tour guides with new ones, further extending the tour guide family history.

Huertas said the last time he introduced himself to current tour guides, they knew exactly who he was because of Vaught’s stories and were excited to finally meet the person Vaught had dubbed “tuna salad guy.”

Jonathan Hoster, who works as an undergraduate recruitment specialist in the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, said he often calls Vaught simply to chat if he has a break in his day. And no matter what she’s doing, she always makes time.

That’s just the type of person she is.

Said Hoster: “There are several Nancys who work in Crouse-Hinds Hall, and everyone knows all the things that Nancy Cantor does for the university, and I kind of see Nancy Vaught as sort of the unsung hero in terms of what she means to this place.”

Published on April 25, 2013 at 1:26 am

Contact Kristin: klross01@syr.edu | @kriskross22